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The macro lens is possibly the lens most often acquired for the wrong reason: for close up work picturing flowers and small things. This is just half the ability of this type of lens; the prime design concern is to provide a flat field and very little distortion, none of these features is particularly important for close up work. Today close-ups are easily taken with a good compact digital camera, probably costing less than the macro lens alone. The compact camera has a wide angle focal length of about 1/10 of the classical macro lens, making them particularly suitable for photographing small things like insects, flowers and toy models.

The full frame Sony 50mm f2.8 Macro lens, however, is a Minolta design having proved its worth for a long time, possibly the overall best 50mm macro lens performer among the 35mm SLR camera systems, employing a double floating elements design. The AF is operated by the camera AF motor, which is fast but not silent. It focuses to 1:1, which covers about the area of 15 x 23 mm using the Sony DSLR APS-C cameras. It has a focus range limiter working three ways: Close-up range or Far range, depending on the lens focusing position when setting the switch, and Full range. Similar to a FF 75mm it gives discrete working distance, soft backgrounds and very pleasing skin tone and texture, without exaggerating size of close body parts of the model. It is also very useful copying 35mm negatives and positives, or any other film size. The results are excellent, focusing fast and accurate. The build quality is quite satisfactory with a classical optical and mechanical construction taking 55 mm filters. Regards JvE

cgarrard

Registered: August 2006Posts: 2

Sony 50mm f/2.8 Macro SAL-50M28 review by cgarrard

Review Date: 8/7/2006

Would you recommend the product? Yes |
Total Spent: $479.00| Rating: 9

Recieved my A100 over a week ago, and this lens a few days ago. Have put almost 800 shots thru it from landscapes to extremely close macro shots. Terribly impressed with it, worth every penny. Focus hold and limiter are great additions to it, and makes the A100 all business. I could shoot with this lens all day and night and never tire using it. Great for portraits too. Shots come out tack sharp, no visible disortion or CA whatsoever. Prime lens fan now. Love it!